Zonghao Wu
Gameplay & Level Designer
About the game
Survival Horror
Interconnected Level
Resource Management
Puzzle-Solving
New Dawn Correctional Center is a Resident Evil-like FPS survival horror level. You're trapped in the creepy prison named "New Dawn Correctional Center" where a mysterious virus outbreak has turned most into zombies, and you need to explore the prison thoroughly to uncover the secrets hidden here and find the way out.
Ideation & Pre-production
(Inspirations)
My main inspirations come from the levels of 3 different games: Raccoon Police Station from Resident Evil 2, Duke's Archives from Dark Souls 1, and Specimen Storehouse from Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erd Tree. These levels all feature some sort of "3D metroidvania" elements, such as interconnectivity, vertical complexity, clever reuse of space, etc. I aim to craft a similar exploration experience in my level.
When deciding on the theme/venue of this level, the ideas I had were: prison, library, museum, or shopping mall, as these places tend to have more intricate structures that would fit my level design goal. I decided to go with "prison" as the venue of the level, as I thought it was more well-scoped than the other options and made more sense if I wanted to put in rooms/spaces with different purposes, such as a dining hall or an ammunition room, which would give me more design agency.
(Pre-production top-down layout draft, which later became the first onboarding section of the game)
After deciding to make a prison level, I started to work on the draft top-down layout for the level. I borrowed the "rotatable staircase" idea from the Duke's Archives level from Dark Souls 1 as one of the main puzzle mechanics, and shaped the level layout around the staircase puzzle. The overall structure of the level used a "panopticon" design for better visibility.
After finishing the draft top-down layout of a small, complete level, I started to build the level based on my draft design in the engine.
Level Design Breakdown
(Top-down view of the overall level)
New Dawn Correctional Center can be divided into two main parts: Section A and Section B. Players start from the utility room in Section A, explore Section A to figure out how to get to Section B, and then explore Section B to figure out how to access the emergency exit, which is the end goal of the game. Horizontally, both Section A and Section B take up around 75 meters by 75 meters. Vertically, Section A contains 3 floors and is around 14 meters high, and Section B contains 6 floors and is around 25 meters high.
While I was working on the early blockout of Section A, I also listed down the modular pieces that would be used for building the level and their metrics. The metric numbers were not settled from the start and went through several adjustments during the early blockout process, but once the metrics were settled, I only used these pieces to build the level to keep everything organized.
(Metrics for the modular pieces used in the level)
Level Progression Flowchart
1
The player starts from a Utility Room near Section A. The player will find a healing item, a pistol with some ammo, meet the first enemy in the game during the exploration of this area, and enter Section A through the staircase.
2
The player enters Section A and directly sees the large staircase in the center with a column beneath it, which will be the main puzzle mechanic in Section A. The player will also instantly see the door leading to Section B, and unlocking that door will be the main goal in Section A. At this stage, the player is given two branching options: go to the dining hall or go upstairs to 2F. If the player goes 2F, they will find the lever that can control the central staircase to rotate, but they don't have the Clearance LV to access it yet.
3
The player enters the dining hall area to search for the Clearance LV1 keycard. In the WC, the player meets the deputy warden, the main quest NPC, who asks the player to retrieve his shotgun from his office on 3F. The player needs to stealth through the dining hall to get the Clearance LV1 keycard, as they don't have enough ammo to dispose of all enemies here for now.
4
With Clearance LV1 obtained, the player goes back to the 2F and figures out the staircase rotation puzzle to reach the 3F and the blocked area of the 2F to get the Clearance LV2 keycard.
5
With Clearance LV2 obtained, the player can access most rooms in Section A, including the Deputy Warden office and Maintenance Room on 3F and Clinic on 2F. The player can find the main quest item shotgun in the Deputy Warden office but can't directly obtain it, and needs to go to the Maintenance Room to override the shotgun locker, which will also open all cell doors in Section A, unleashing a horde of zombies and putting the player in tension. After getting the shotgun, the player goes back to the WC NPC to obtain the Clearance LV3 keycard, which allows the player to proceed to Section B.
6
The player enters Section B and directly sees the emergency exit, which needs Clearance LV8 to open. Escaping from the emergency exit is the ultimate goal of the level. Section B also has a large staircase in the center. Apart from rotation, this staircase can also be moved up or down through the lever controlling it. The B1 area is flooded, and only the Shower Zone is accessible to the player at this stage.
7
The shower zone elevator takes the player to 4F. The player can find the levers controlling the central staircase on 4F, but they need Clearance LV6 to access. The only path the player can take at this stage is to jump from the gap of 4F to the central staircase (this is hinted by a prompt in the game). Then the player can choose to explore 3F first or keep going down to 2F. On 3F, the player can find and access the library with rewards and a ladder that can't be used yet. The player can find the Yard (need Clearance LV5) and Maintenance Room (need Clearance LV6 and blocked by one-way doors) on 2F.
8
The player can find the Clearance LV5 keycard from the Press Room on 1F and use it to access the Yard on 2F. The player obtains "basketball" from the yard and uses it to solve a puzzle to get the Clearance LV6 keycard.
9
With Clearance LV6 obtained and the staircase levers accessible, there are two exploration directions for the player to choose: the Maintenance Room on 2F or the upper floors (4F/5F). There is also a secret tunnel on 3F that connects back to the Deputy Warden office in Section A, allowing the player to backtrack to the Ammunition Room in Section A more easily. Through rotating the central staircase, the player reaches the Maintenance Room on 2F in Section B and finds the drain valve that would remove the flood in B1. The player follows the hint and solves the camera puzzle in the Press Room on 1F to get the password for the Drain Valve to remove the flood in B1.
10
With the flood removed, the whole B1 area becomes explorable for the player. The player can obtain the Clearance LV7 keycard, the assault rifle from the Shooting Range, and the toolroom key from the Boiler Room. The Morgue is locked by chains and currently inaccessible, same as the Ammunition Room on 3F.
11
The player goes back to the Maintenance Room, opens the tool room, and obtains the equipment "Bolt Cutter", which allows the player to access rooms locked by chains (the 3F Ammunition Room and B1 Morgue). The player obtains plenty of ammo supplies and 1 weapon upgrade from the Ammunition Room. In the Morgue, the player finds 1 weapon upgrade and meets a puzzle that can't be solved yet (a corpse with secret texts written on it).
12
The player goes back to the Maintenance Room, opens the tool room, and obtains the equipment "Bolt Cutter", which allows the player to access rooms locked by chains (the 3F Ammunition Room and B1 Morgue). The player obtains plenty of ammo supplies and 1 weapon upgrade from the Ammunition Room. In the Morgue, the player finds 1 weapon upgrade and meets a puzzle that can't be solved yet (a corpse with secret texts written on it).
13
After finishing the exploration of the B1 area, the player proceeds to the 5F and explores the Warden Office and Interrogation Room. The NPC warden in Warden Office and the NPC doctor in the Interrogation room both ask the player to fetch a classified file from the Archives in exchange for the Clearance LV8 keycard that would unlock the emergency exit.
14
The player obtains the classified file password from the Morgue with the equipment obtained from the NPC doctor in the Interrogation Room and uses the password to obtain "Crime Evidence" from the Archives. The player gives the Crime Evidence to the NPC doctor in exchange for the Clearance LV8 keycard and uses it to unlock the 1F emergency exit. Victory.
Gameplay Design & Implementation
Combat & Gunplay
The combat gameplay loop is similar to those in other classic survival horror shooters like Resident Evil: the player obtains a weak gun and limited ammunition at first, needs to carefully manage all the resources, and gradually upgrades the guns and obtains new, powerful guns through more exploration and combat.
(Gunplay showcase)
There are three weapons that players can obtain in the game: pistol, shotgun, and assault rifle. There are also weapon upgrades for each gun (ammo capacity and damage upgrades) hidden in different locations of the level, incentivizing the players to explore. Weapon damage numbers are indicated in combat to encourage players to save resources through calculation. For example, to defeat a 100 HP enemy, 1 shotgun fire (70 damage) and 2 pistol fires (15 damage each, 30 damage in total) is better than 2 shotgun fires (140 damage in total) as no damage is wasted.
(Blueprints for gunplay related function)
Since this project is a prototype focusing on level design, I followed the "minimum viable product" principles and used my rapid prototype skills when making the gunplay-related functions (including different fire logics, weapon swap, reload, etc.). Meanwhile, I wanted to make sure this streamlined combat system can still clearly communicate all the combat-related information to the players, so I used Timeline to make simple recoil and reload animation for each weapon and added hit marker & reload progress UI.
(Blueprints for enemy behaviors)
Since I don't need advanced enemy AI in this project, for the sake of efficiency, I made most of the enemy behavior logics in the enemy character blueprint instead of using the behavior tree. The enemy logic is quite basic but suffice this project: when the player enters its sight radius, it goes after the player and attacks when close enough.
Puzzle mechanics
The staircase transform is the core puzzle mechanic in the level. In Section A, the staircase can be rotated. In Section B, the staircase can be both rotated and moved up or down. Transforming the staircase in the correct way allows the player to access areas they can't reach before.
(puzzles showcase)
The rest of the puzzle mechanics are simpler: most are about finding the right "key" for the right "lock", and the challenge is more about how to find the right "keys" through exploration. The "basketball" puzzles are more about thinking outside the box.
(Blueprints for one of the staircase-controlling lever)
(Blueprints for security doors that need certain Clearance LV to open
Iterations & Learnings
In the early stage of this project, the creation of Section B was not part of the plan yet, and the Section A layout and the player questline in Section A were also different from the final build. At the end of the second week, when I was already sure that the Section A experience was already smooth enough after several iterations and playtests from others, I started to expand the level to Section B, which is a more advanced version of Section A and will test players on everything they learnt from Section A.
Show the goal clearly from the start
This is something I always do and will keep doing for exploration-driven or puzzle-driven levels: let players understand what their ultimate goal is in the current section from the start, so players can focus on "how to solve the puzzle" instead of "what is the puzzle".
Minimizing potential softlocks
The first version of Section A questline was: the player gets the shotgun from the 2F office and uses it to defeat an elite enemy in 1F Dining Hall (that enemy is only vulnerable to the shotgun), and the loot is the key to escape from Section A. The biggest issue was that if the player ran out of shotgun ammo, they would be softlocked. So I changed the questline and the level layout: the player meets a NPC in the WC of Dining Hall, who gives the player the main quest of getting shotgun from his office, with the LV3 keycard as the reward.
(early level layout)
Don't show the solution before the question
Since I was trying to craft a "3D metroidvania" exploration experience, the player will constantly run into puzzles that they can't solve yet and need to come back later after they acquire the solution. Therefore, the "puzzle" should be presented to the player first, and the "solution" later. In the earlier version, the secret tunnel leading to the Duty Room in Section A was presented to the player earlier than the Duty Room itself. I didn't notice this until I learnt it from a playtester's feedback, so I swapped their location to keep the exploration experience consistent.
Another thing I learnt is to avoid sending misleading information about nonexistent features/mechanics to the players. Take the Dining Hall as an example, in the early version, all the tables were placed neatly instead of put down in a mess, but I noticed it from the playtests that this would make some players assume that they can sneak under the table, which was not a planned feature in the project. So I put down all the tables and left no gaps under them to prevent that false assumption.
Make full use of every room/space
Since backtracking and revisiting the same place with newly obtained items/abilities is an essential part of the exploration experience in this project, making full use of every room and space is beneficial for both the development efficiency and the players' exploration incentive. Based on that, I made several iterations to make every room more useful and interconnected with each other.
(early level layout)
For example, in the early version, in Section A, the player can directly obtain the shotgun from the deputy warden's office (used to be warden's office, as Section B is not planned at that moment), and the maintenance room is just an elevator for the player to go back to 1F, which is not a very engaging process. In the later iteration, I gave the maintenance room more purpose: the player can see the shotgun locker in warden's office, but they need to visit the maintenance to unlock the locker. I made every room in the game essential to the questline, so the player won't feel wasting time visiting any of them.
(Final version)
Incentivize curiosity and exploration
As mentioned above, the player will constantly run into puzzles that they need to solve later, but I also don't want the player feel frustrated or demotivated. Therefore, when a room has a puzzle that the player can't solve yet, I also put in rewards like weapon upgrades or supplies, so the player can always feel they gain something from the exploration.
The balance between exploration agency and confusion
This is a common challenge for exploration-driven levels: if the level is too linear, there won't be enough exploration depth and fun. But if there are too many branching options provided to the player at the same time, they can also easily get lost and frustrated. This is how I keep the balance between exploration agency and confusion: the player feels like there are a lot of places they can go at the start, but a lot of the places need a certain item or ability to access later, and the actual accessible branching options that the player can take at the same time are never more than two. During playtests, most playtesters didn't get lost when exploring and always knew what they need to do at each stage.
In summary, this project is a very fruitful experience for me. My level design and prototyping skills were enhanced, and I learnt quite a few level design principles on how to build a level with exploration depth and fun to play.